Doughty Designs Eileen Doughty - Biography

This article was published several years ago. Since then, the focus of my work has evolved into three-dimensional
thread sculptures,
my critique group has moved on, the Potomac Fiber Arts Guild and Gallery play
an important part in my creative life, a larger version of "The Alarm Clock Rings" has been purchased
by Amazon Web Services, and "Root Domain" has appeared in a Hollywood movie. But the gist of the article is still pertinent.

Like most quilters, I started out making traditional bed
quilts. In 1986, after hearing how much my mother (a terrific
seamstress) was enjoying her first quilting class, I had to try it too.
My first course resulted in a traditional twelve-block sampler
quilt. It was entirely hand-pieced and hand-quilted. I
survived that first quilt and was hooked - but knew that handwork
wasn't for me.

During the last class the instructor passed around some quilting
magazines. One had an article about Joen Wolfrom. It just
about knocked me out of my seat, since all the quilts I'd seen up till
then were traditional. I realized that quilts could be art, could
be expressive, even abstract. So my second quilt was a simple
pieced landscape wall hanging of a place I'd been in the Caribbean -
and I made it almost entirely by machine.

My interest in landscapes goes way back, at least to my college major
of cartography. The mix of art and science in that field was very
attractive to me. I had always enjoyed math and the sciences, so
throwing in some art in a scientific career was just too fun!

My last summer at university I took a leisure watercolor class. I
wasn't very good at it. Sometimes I think I ended up making
landscape quilts because of that frustration with painting. But
my landscape quilts have benefited from my map-making days, having some
knowledge of drafting and the principles of color, design and
perception. I still love looking at aerial and space photography
too.

When my daughter was born in 1990, I resigned my position as a
supervisory cartographer and became an at-home mother. A year
later I started my business, Doughty Designs, selling hand-drawn quilt
labels. Not long thereafter I wandered into a shop in my town
that sells quilts. I walked out with a commission to make a quilt
of antique cars, as none of her employees could draft the design.
The store owner later commissioned a series of scenes of historic
buildings in our town. That was really the start of my landscape
quilting. It led to a commission from a quilt store in Maryland
to design a line of historic lighthouses wall hangings and write the
patterns; I also did a lighthouse block-of-the-month pattern for a
Texas store. I now sell these patterns myself at various
lighthouse gift shops, and also through QuiltersWarehouse.com.

My current focus is creating commissioned wall hangings. I also enter my
work in shows - mainly those for mixed media, as most “quilt”
shows don't know what to make of my work. I am finding I do much better in
“art” shows.

I am a “visual” person and like looking at shapes of trees,
unusual architecture, colors of clouds… But a good piece of advice I
learned early on was to make art about what you know. Many of my quilts are
about my interests or places near where I live.

Designing an art quilt does not come easily for me. It takes a lot
of work and thinking. I do not normally envision the whole design in my
head. However my sketches for a piece are not detailed, and probably don't look
like much to anyone else. The sketch gets my ideas down in tangible form
and gives me a starting place. Starting a new quilt is so hard - there are
so many decisions to make. Finally I just have to start where I know what
small step I can do. It's sort of like the quote about being a writer,
“Just put down one damn word after another.” Once in a while,
of course, there is an exception. “The Alarm Clock Rings” was
for a challenge called the “Space/Time Continuum” and the title
just popped into my head! The design came very easily just from the pun of
the title.

I love to do thread painting. “Root Domain”, which will always
be one of my favorites, has extensive thread painting. I am a rather lazy
quilter, and started doing thread painting because I hate turning under
edges for appliqué. With this technique, I cut out a shape (such as
tree foliage), pin it to the background, lower my machine's feed dogs, and
'scribble' the heck out of it with thread.

The biggest thrill was being chosen for a very special commission in
2001. The Arts Council of Fairfax County selected me to make an ornament
for the White House Christmas tree. (Four artists were selected from each
state and the District of Columbia.) One thing in my favor was that the
theme that year was historic homes, and each ornament had to be small,
lightweight and three-dimensional. Apparently the Council thought a quilter
could do that more easily than a painter. “Yes, I can do that!”
I said on the phone when asked. I hung up and said to myself, “How
the heck am I going to do that?”

I made an ornament of President James Monroe's beautiful home, Oak
Hill. Just when I was ready to send my ornament off to the White House,
the anthrax problems struck. Even shipping UPS to the White House
was not easy - that was a tale in itself! Ultimately my package
made it (after I had recurring nightmares of having to make a
replacement). My husband and I attended the artists' reception
that December and felt like visiting royalty. We could even sit
on the furniture. We had our picture taken with a most gracious
First Lady.

A few years ago I felt the need for some real critique of my work. My quilt
guild is full of nice people who oooh and ahhh during show and tell --
which is nice for my ego but not for my artistic growth! So I put out a
call for art quilters, and the group Q&A Quilt Art was born. I have gotten the feedback I
need, and met a number of really neat artists to boot. We meet several
times a year, and have group shows of our work.

A surface design class taught by Lise Schioler introduced me to many
new ways to execute a design—painting, stamping, foiling, silk
screening, discharging, etc. It is great to have a lot of 'tools in my
toolbox' from which to choose. I now paint much of my
own fabric. For me, painting is a lot simpler than dyeing,
especially when only a small amount of yardage is needed.

My artwork continues to evolve. My philosophy is that I am a fiber artist,
and my work should emphasize that it cannot be achieved with a simple flat
surface. My newest work has more dimensionality by employing frayed edges,
weaving, holes, non-cotton fabrics, multiple layers, etc. I am also
learning how to express my worldview and political opinions in my art.